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Fairy tales are for children.
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Dinosaurs are fake and leads to atheism!
- Thread starter Ktoyou
- Start date
Richard Dawkins was hand delivered a letter with the following challenge on it:
| Let's ignore all the wild complexity of the genetic code and try to give a Darwinian explanation for one of the simplest aspects of our DNA. Richard Dawkins, drawing on your lifetime of studying evolution, can you describe, in as vague terms as you'd like, how the 3-to-1 pattern could arise by a non-directed material process, such that three genetic letters code for one amino acid? Because we are creationist here in Denver at Real Science Radio, we can readily acknowledge that the laws of physics have no symbolic logic functions. Thus, a half century of trying by naturalists was doomed to fail, because just as you will have no answer to this challenge, there is no conceivable answer, because it cannot ever happen, even given infinite time. |
He has not replied. Nor will he ever be able to (as the letter says) provide an answer to the challenge, because it's not possible.
This is the challenge you face, BEFORE you, Skeeter, can even BEGIN to think about genetics.
An appropriate word.
Get with the program?
The program is this:
You assert evolutionary theory against the demands of the laws of entropy. You make excuses for your story, but provide nothing substantial that might justify it.
Darwinism is a failed theory.
Get with the program.
I wasn't trying to be particularly clever. I said it to make a point.
Of course you do.
If this were your real stance you would not be an atheist. Abiogenesis is only one of thousands of things in the natural world that simply cannot have been created by undirected, mindless, natural processes. Virtually every process in biology presents to the atheist yet another wildly complex system that the evidence says is scientifically impossible. Yet you believe.
That is faith, by your own definition! It actually happens not to be faith according to what the bible teaches. The bible teaches that faith is about substantive evidence (Heb. 11:1) what you atheists practice is the sort of faith that which doctors have in the reading chicken entrails and the local con artist has in reading Tarot cards and the lines on the palm of your hand. Its just pure mindless belief based on nothing at all.
Clete
Derf
Well-known member
That's not completely true. It's a faith based on following the priests of scientism--"follow the science" (i.e., "believe what we tell you to believe").
Funny how you say it isn't completely true and then give a counter example that is completely in keeping with what you said wasn't completely true.
Derf
Well-known member
Funny how what you wrote isn't true.
Derf
Well-known member
But beyond the snark, "mindless" belief is always based on something. Consider the Tooth Fairy (to try to find an example that hasn't been overly emphasized in media--especially Hallmark Movies for Santa). Children are told this by their parents, and they believe their parents. This is NOT mindless faith--it is faith based on two witnesses (assuming they have two parents)! The same can apply to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny--if parents, who are trusted sources of information, provide direct testimony of a thing to their children, the children are right to believe it, aren't they--with two trusted witnesses?
I'm not sure it's a whole lot different than what we believe when we read the bible.
We have 4 gospels that testify to Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrection--but we haven't witnessed those events ourselves. We have preachers that pass on the gospel message to us. And we usually have parents, other family members, or friends that bring that gospel message to us. I don't believe you would call that "mindless" faith.
What about evolution? Isn't it attested to by numerous scientists the world over? Don't we trust "scientists" to tell us the truth on such matter? Aren't teachers passing on the gospel of evolution from pretty early on in our schools? Don't many of our parents, either by omission or commission, reinforce the message, as well as friends? So those that aren't involved in studying the science themselves are going on the word of multiple lines of testimony, which is not "mindless". The problem is that those lines aren't trustworthy--even though we think they should be, such as with our parents telling us about the Tooth Fairy. Eventually the Tooth Fairy dogma is overturned in our minds by greater testimony, sometimes by admission of our parents, or by friends.
Sometimes Christ's gospel dogma is overturned in children's minds when they reach college age (or before), when they start hearing from numerous authorities in various disciplines telling them not to believe in it any more. And if their parents sent them to that particular college or university, those "authorities" come with the backing of the parents, implicitly.
Evolution can be overturned in someone's mind by hearing truth from the preachers or creation ministries, or reading the Bible, and/or by the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
Certainly some of these overturning forces (different "authorities") are more powerfully persuasive than others, but if we have to find out the truth without witness testimony, there's very little that can assure us of past events on either side--just like invisible or hard-to-catch entities like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
I'm not in disagreement with the thrust of your post--that many people follow these "authorities" without checking out the dissenting authorities. I think that's what you mean by "mindless", and you are correct that there's a mindlessness to it. The mindlessness is only partial, though--we listen to one set of witnesses without listening to the other set. Our minds shut off partway through the process, but only after having heard the testimony of the first set of "authorities". In that way, the belief in evolution is very similar to a belief in the Tooth Fairy, only as adults people think they have all the right answers, and they often don't search out a matter fully.
That's only partial mindlessness.
It is true!
"Believe what we tell you to believe!" is precisely what which doctors do to those who follow them. It is exactly what the local con artist asks you to do when they "read" your palm. It isn't about actual science where what they believe is the result of asking real questions, doing real investigations and finding real evidence for the answers they supposedly believe in.
It's just blind belief based on nothing at all.
I was not being snarky at all.
I meant precisely what I said and wasn't trying to be sarcastic or insulting, although I can see why you might have read it in that way. My intention was merely to make an observation.
No, that's what the word "mindless" means.
Certainly it is based on nothing of any substance, nothing real, which was the point.
Which means that it is far more substantive that any atheistic belief in the magic appearance of biological life by mindless, undirected processes of chemistry.
Yikes! If that's true of you, you're in big trouble!
Likening one's trust in scripture and their subsequent belief in God to a child's belief in the Tooth-Fairy is bordering of blasphemy and couldn't be farther from the truth.
I can't hardly believe I'm reading this.
The existence of God is as obvious as the nose on your face. The scripture stands as corroborating testimony to the proof that is all around us, which is why we believe it, not the other way around. There are loads of things that we could not know apart from the revelation presented to us in scripture but we believe those things because the scripture is in keeping, not only with sound reason but with the rest of reality. We do NOT believe the bible blindly!
Abiogensis is quite different than evolution. There are things that could at least be interpreted, whether rightly or wrongly, as evidence for evolution. There is no such evidence for the beginning of biological life. On the contrary, all the evidence that exists, testifies unwaveringly that it is quite entirely impossible for life to have arisen by accident and those who believe it did, do so based on literally NOTHING at all.
Foolish parents shipwreck their children's faith all the time but because some people's faith is unmorred from sound teaching doesn't mean that this is the case for every Christian nor that it aught to be the case for any Christian. If one's faith amount to blind belief then anything can change it. It doesn't have to be a college professor, it could be the evening news, the Discovery Channel or the neighbor next door. It takes more than merely reading the bible or listening to a preacher. If your faith is based on solely that, then, at best, you'll be blown about by every wind of doctrine and one of those doctrines might one day become "there is no God".
Truth is truth. What is, is. A is A. Contradictions do not exist in reality. This applies just as much to theology as it does to any other branch of philosophy and if you disconnect your doctrine from sound reason, proper investigation, evidence, etc then you're right! We're no better off than the local palm reading con artist.
"Creation ministries, or reading the Bible, and/or by the prompting of the Holy Spirit." a.k.a. "sound reason".
Wow!
Eye witness testimony is not the only type of evidence, Derf! It isn't even the best kind of evidence!
Well, you can't push out a fart without the use of your mind to some degree. You couldn't understand the words "life arose by accident" without the use of your mind. Without your mind, you'd stop breathing, fall over and die and so pretty much any use of the word "mindless" is hyperbole to at least some degree. "Straining out gnats" I think is the biblical expression that applies here.
Clete
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Derf
Well-known member
I think you've proved what I was trying to say. Their belief is based on something, and therefore it isn't totally mindless. Perhaps you are saying that belief that tries to limit any actions of God in creation is from the instincts of man weighed down by the constraints of his sin nature, but that still manifests itself in them more easily believing in what scientists, teachers, humanists, media tell them.
They don't search out the matter fully--that's the mindless side of it. Or lazy side.
Well, like I said... "Straining out gnats."
By your definition of "mindless" there isn't anything anyone ever does that is mindless.
Derf
Well-known member
Perhaps so.
Derf
Well-known member
I guess if one rejects the fossil evidence that they existed, one would also be inclined to reject other archeological evidence that some peoples existed, like the pyramids or the ruins of great cities the bible never mentions.
If someone tells me they found bones that were over a million years old, then yes,I'm going to doubt the truth in that statement. The bones may be real but they could have also been manufactured by the same people who were looking for recognition and glory. I was simply stating that whales, which I can see with my own eyes, make me believe that other animals might have existed, prior to the flood, close to their size.
Right. Sorry, The naked man and woman with a snake in a garden better smacks of the true grit of reality.
Derf
Well-known member
If they’re willing to put a multi-million year age on something they make themselves, then they could be just as willing to assign a multi-million year age to something that is only thousands of years old. In both cases something exists that needs to be dealt with truly, rather than claim the things don’t exist.
If you cannot understand a book written for grown ups, you should not talk about it.
(Paraphrased from a C.S. Lewis quote.)
The reality is that all rebels against God will someday stand naked and ashamed before Him at His Great White Throne of Judgment.